The DCHS Fighting Tiger Marching band traveled to Westmorland High School for the Highland Rim Marching Invitational. And once again rain was an issue. Add to that the temperature was as cold as it’s been all year.
The Students met at the band room for a cold, early Saturday morning to learn and clean last minute drill changes along with the color guard learning last minute show additions. They were excited to show the audience the new things that had been added to the show.
When the band arrived at Westmorland High School they learned that the contest would be a “stand still” contest. Which means that, rather than marching the drill that they’d been cleaning on all morning, they would march out onto the field and play their music standing still. None of the new marching effects would be put into the performance.
The Westmoreland High School field was completely rain soaked and muddy. “This has been a condition that a lot of the contests are having this year” said band director Jonathan Wright, “we’ve dealt with a lot of rain this season.”
The results of the contest were still good. The DeKalb County Fighting Tiger band placed 2nd in Class behind Whitehouse Heritage High School. Field Commander Hunter Tramel also finished 2nd in class. The Color Guard and Percussion Section received the highest scores and won the gold in their class.
Mr. Wright says “this year our students are learning a lot more than music and marching. They’re learning how to prevail when the odds are against them”.
Now the band is preparing for their Halloween performance at the football game against Livingston Academy on Friday Oct 30th . “It’s been several weeks since we’ve performed in DeKalb County and this is senior night” says Mr. Wright” We’ll be honoring our seniors, and this show just might have a surprise or two”.
The final performance of the year will be the Division II State competition, on November 7th. This is a prelims/finals competition. The band will have to do well in their preliminary performance to make it to the finals. Some of the best Division II bands in the state will be at this contest.
The band and boosters would like to invite everyone out to either of these performance. You can visit the band online at www.dekalbband.com to find out the schedule and performance times.
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